Nile Basin Initiative Meeting in Danger of Collapse

A meeting of countries that share the waters of the Nile has hit snags in Alexandria. Egypt is holdingy firm on not yielding its traditional level of usage of Nile waters.

This is one of those relatively obscure issues that rarely captures attention, since it lacks the sizzle of Israeli settlements or the price of oil, but in an arid region, water is a critical commodity. And with growing populations and a finite supply of potable water, the Middle East is likely to face more and more disputes over water resources with the passage of time.

Herodotus famously said that Egypt is the Gift of the River, and it appears that Egypt and Sudan are intent on maintaining their water usage levels despite pressure from the upriver states to consume less. This sort of dispute is going to be more and more frequent, I suspect.